Monthly Archives: September 2015

Nuance is dead. I am working on an idea that we need to become more able to disagree without being disagreeable. Can we have a difference of opinion without calling each other stupid or hateful names? Not sure we can.

So I come to Ms.Klein’s book ‘This Changes Everything’ with this thought in mind. I start by saying I think she is well intentioned. The slogans she passes off give way to a real concern for the planet, our society, and what we are leaving behind for our children. She means well.

I am not a climate change denier. Although I consider myself conservative, even Libertarian, I am not an ostrich hiding my head in the sand. I think that Climate Change and finding a solution to this problem will be the defining issue of our time. And a good book to read on the subject is “The Rough Guide to Climate Change” by Robert Henson.

We look back on history and we wonder: Did the Inca civilization see the collapse coming that took them down? Did the Mayas of South America see it coming? Did the leaders on Easter Island have some idea of their imminent collapse? Were the Romans aware that their society was in decline? Will we see the signs and be able to avert our collapse?

Climate Change could bring about a similar collapse to our entire world. Ms.Klein documents well the issues, the costs, the current political situation. That some many on the right of the political spectrum are in denial is disappointing to say the least.
But the failure in this book is not in describing Climate Change or calling for us to address it. The failure is that Ms.Klein creates a false dichotomy that there is a choice between addressing the Climate Change issue or continuing with Capitalism. How she makes that mental leap is impossible to follow. I think it is a supposition and position she brings to the effort. It was already decided before she started to write. Which is a shame.
The extreme left, including Ms.Klein and her husband Ari Lewis (who made a movie of the book at the same time), hate Capitalism. And hate is such an awful thing. It eats up the hater more than the hated. It clouds vision, twists judgment, impairs thinking, leads to lazy logic and makes rational discussion impossible.
Ms.Klein makes the mistake to think that only by abandoning our economic and political freedoms will be be able to solve climate change. She sees addressing climate change as an opportunity to address every social ill she can conceive of adding to her laundry list. It goes so far in the wrong direction I wonder if she really cares about addressing climate change?
Why would you try to load down addressing climate change with so much extra baggage and costs?
When we fought Polio, we fought polio. We didn’t try to change peoples religious beliefs.
When we see cholera outbreaks, we know that people need clean water. We don’t say they need a new political or economic order.
When we fought fascism and the Nazi scourge we didn’t abandon our freedoms to make the case we couldn’t win with free speech and economic liberty holding us back. These are the things we fought for.
Yet Ms.Klein would have us abandon Capitalism, free enterprise and most individual freedoms to address climate change. Which leads to understanding why.
Ms.Klein has a comment where she accuses her political opponents of ‘Arrogant Ignorance’. Yet reading her book, it is impossible to see that she has any understanding of economics, or even a basic understanding of budgeting and book keeping. She dismisses Free Trade agreements without even lip service to why the vast majority of economists know they are a good idea: Free trade lowers costs of goods and services to everyone.
She suggests that Western governments subsidize Oil and mineral extraction, when the exact opposite is obvious. When Oil and commodities fall governments all over the world are impacted by falling revenues. Governments are addicted to the money they take from Oil and gas taxes.
She means well. Climate change needs to be addressed. The way to address it is to reduce the amount of Carbon Dioxide we push into the atmosphere. Start with that truth. Start with half of the CO2 created is for transportation. Cars, Trucks, Trains, Ships and Air craft. How can we reduce this? Not even a hint in her book.
Steven Covey used to say ‘Start with the Big Rocks.’ That is a good approach. We need someone to start at the beginning and look at these big rocks. With a blank sheet of paper and no dogmatic preconceived solutions. This is a big problem people. We need to bring our best and brightest to bare on it. Our civilization depends on it.

I watched the economic debate in the Canadian election tonight. I thought it was a tie between Harper and Mulcair. I did notice how Justin Trudeau kept interupting other speakers where Harper and Mulcair didn’t , and I wondered if Trudeau was running for ‘Heckler in Chief’ rather than PM.
Half way through my wife, who isn’t political, said she couldn’t stand listening to Justin Trudeau and I thought it was just me. And then my son came home and asked me who I was voting for. I said probably Harper ’cause I thought the other two were idiots. But I quickly corrected that. I said the guy on the left (Trudeau) was an idiot, but the guy in the middle (Mulcair) I just totally disagreed with his policies. Mulcair had won me over.
And then a light came on. Everyone in Canada is assuming that if there is a Minority Government that the Liberals and the NDP will line up, defeat the Conservatives, and form a government. But I think I saw something different tonight.
Harper and Mulcair are long game players. Trudeau is risking all on a short term play. And if he loses, the other two will be positioned to finish him off.
Suppose a minority as most assume will happen. The Conservatives and the NDP will be in a position to slice and dice the Liberal base. ‘Tom, you take the urban progressives, I will take the suburban famililies.’ Says Harper.
‘OK’ says Tom. ‘I want the Environmental crowd, you can have the recent immigrants’.
‘OK. And Quebec?’
‘I own it’ says Tom. ‘Think you can take it?’
‘Let me sleep on that’ say Harper. ‘The East coast?’
‘We added 30 seats this year. That is the East coast. Add 30 more , who cares.’

So they write up some legislation that divides up the population as suggested. Trudeau doesn’t know which side to take, cause, he isn’t supposed to know.

And with that Harper’s vision of a two party state moves towards reality. And Mulcair and the NDP become the opposition forever. And the Government in waiting.